Linus Torvalds on requiring the root password for mundane tasks. "So here's a plea: if you have anything to do with security in a distro, and think that my kids (replace 'my kids' with 'sales people on the road' if you think your main customers are businesses) need to have the root password to access some wireless network, or to be able to print out a paper, or to change the date-and-time settings, please just kill yourself now. The world will be a better place." Yes, it's harsh (deal with it, Finns don't beat around the bush), but he's completely and utterly right. While there's cases where it makes sense to disable certain settings (public terminals, for instance), it is utterly idiotic that regular home users have to type in their root password for such mundane tasks.

You seem to misunderstand what I'm saying. I'm arguing against using sudo by default on server platforms. I don't hate sudo. In fact, I've included it in my operating system. I don't think sudo itself is the problem, but rather how people talk about it. It implies a certain type of setup and use case that most people don't realize.

There are more incompetent system administrators than competent ones. It's a fact of life.